


Part 12: Brian

by oiuytrewq36



Series: We Will Survive [12]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:41:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26038861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oiuytrewq36/pseuds/oiuytrewq36
Summary: “Theodore,” I say, opening the door to his office with the hand not holding a ludicrously overpriced triple-shot latte, “tell me that the new report from T&K doesn’t mean what I think it means.”Ted taps on his keyboard - tabbing away from a porn site, probably - and swivels to face me. “I would, but my twelve-step program advises against lying in order to make others feel better.”
Relationships: Brian Kinney/Justin Taylor (Queer as Folk)
Series: We Will Survive [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881736
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	Part 12: Brian

“Theodore,” I say, opening the door to his office with the hand not holding a ludicrously overpriced triple-shot latte, “tell me that the new report from T&K doesn’t mean what I think it means.”

Ted taps on his keyboard - tabbing away from a porn site, probably - and swivels to face me. “I would, but my twelve-step program advises against lying in order to make others feel better.”

I resist the urge to haul him out of his chair by the collar of his boring beige V-neck. “Ted.”

“Yeah?”

“Just tell me what the fucking report says.”

Ted turns his computer to face me and pulls up a huge spreadsheet that, as far as I can tell, means absolutely nothing. “Okay. T&K Leadership Group, owner of three different brands that previously appeared to be potential major clients for Kinnetik, has shown steadily declining profits for the past two years. Their most recent quarterly SEC filing indicates a much sharper drop in revenue than expected, meaning that they’ll be scrambling to break even this year, let alone make a profit. Their investors are fleeing, their CEO is the laughingstock of Wall Street, and I’ll be shocked if they don’t file for chapter 11 bankruptcy by the end of the month.”

“So in other words-”

“In other words, we should drop pursuit of any and all of their brands. Their financial woes pre-New Year’s might have made them more amenable to switching agencies, but now it’s to a degree that they’ll likely keep losing money even if we gave them the most stellar campaign imaginable, which could only hurt us.”

“That’s eighteen months’ work down the drain. We have boards, copy, everything ready for the meeting on Thursday.”

“If T&K still exists in any meaningful way on Thursday, by all means, have the meeting, but I’m not confident the reps will even show up. Not that I doubt your powers of persuasion, but even Kinnetik can’t save a company in shit this deep.”

I lean back on the doorframe and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Fuck.”

Ted props his feet on his desk. “That about sums it up.”

I finish my coffee and toss the empty cup into Ted’s trash can. “Well, since I no longer have a major meeting to prepare for, do you feel like a Shirley Temple, or whatever the fuck it is you order in bars now?”

***

Ted does actually order a Shirley Temple when we get to Woody’s. I can’t tell if he’s mocking me or not, and I don’t especially care. It’s not like anyone’s here to view my theoretical embarrassment, anyway - we’re the only people in the bar, aside from a very bored bartender reading a three-month-old copy of _Out_.

“So,” Ted says. “You don’t seem to be doing that great.”

I glare at him and toss back my vodka tonic before ordering another.

“Feels like it’s been a few days since you’ve boasted about having life-affirming phone sex with your better half,” he continues.

“I pay you to manage my finances,” I say. “Not my sex life.”

“Is everything okay with the two of you?” he asks. “Because you know you can talk to me-”

“Christ, Ted, just leave it, will you?”

Ted sets down his glass much harder than necessary. “No, I will not fucking ‘leave it’, because whenever you two break up, you each rely on everyone else around you to pick up the pieces, because you’re miserable without each other but you’re both too stubborn to admit it.”

“We’re not breaking up. Jesus.”

“Okay, so what is it?”

I take a long swig of my drink. “The last time Justin came to visit, we had this … fight.”

“Over money?”

“How’d you know?”

Ted shrugs. “It’s always over money.”

“Well, we had our little blowout, but we kissed and made up and all that shit, and everything seemed to be fine. We’ve been talking on the phone almost every day since he went back to New York, but three days ago all my calls started going to voicemail, and he answers my messages with texts apologizing and saying he’s 'super busy right now'."

“Maybe he is.”

“Yeah, maybe. It’s just so … sudden.”

I put an elbow on the bar and rest my forehead on my palm. “Fuck. I sound like a middle-school girl with a crush.”

Ted chuckles. “Love’s like that sometimes.”

I roll my eyes.

“You should go visit him. Surprise him, have lots of hot makeup sex of the kind that us mere mortals could never hope to experience, tell him how you feel.”

I sigh. “I don’t know if he wants me there.”

“Of course he does,” Ted says. “Don’t you want him here right now?”

“Yeah, but-”

“But nothing. I’m only going to tell you this once, so listen up: You’re the least competent person I’ve ever met when it comes to relationships, romantic or otherwise.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“But it would be monumentally stupid, even for you, if you let him drift away from you over a tiny little thing like this.”

I snort. “I know that, asshole.”

“Well,” Ted says, plucking the stem off the maraschino cherry from his drink. “Then I guess you know what to do now.”

When we get back to the office, Cynthia is waiting at my desk holding a printout. “Some retired über-exec who runs a mentorship program in Manhattan wants to meet with you tomorrow afternoon at his condo to talk about partnering with Kinnetik for a CMU extension course. I said you’d think about it, so-”

Ted is raising his eyebrows at me meaningfully. “I’ll go. But make sure the flight is on a decent airline, not whatever tin-can piece of shit I took last week.” 

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, boss.”

"And make the return flight Sunday night."

She grins at me. "Need some quality time with my favorite ex-intern?"

"Fuck off." I snatch the paper out of her hand and walk out - out of _my office_ \- with her and Ted snickering behind me.

***

The Garment District building where the driver drops me off is a remodeled factory skyscraper, not at all the overly-ostentatious marble-coated horror I was expecting. Inside, the lobby is clean and modern, free of the awful gold trim that the classic New York luxury apartment blocks are so obsessed with.

The doorman tells me to take the elevator to the fifty-fourth floor. The doors open, and there, next to a woman I’ve never seen before, is Jennifer Taylor, holding a stack of binders.

“Brian, this is Miranda,” Jennifer says, gesturing to the woman next to her. “She owns the building.”

I close my mouth after realizing that it's hanging open and nod at the other woman. I look at Jennifer again, just to make sure it really is her. It is.

“That little-”

“We’re going to go have a chat in the lobby,” Jennifer says. “We’ll be back up in, oh, forty-five minutes, all right? The door’s right through there.” She smiles and pats me on the shoulder as she walks past.

With the distinct impression that I’m having a very vivid hallucination, I go through the door and find Justin lying on his back, hands behind his head, on the floor of a huge, airy living room with floor-to-ceiling windows showing a spectacular view of the city. I walk over to him.

“Tell me you didn’t-”

“Buy this condo?” he says. “Why, would that be a completely insane thing to do without consulting my partner first?”

Suddenly feeling a little light-headed, I lie down on the floor next to him. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“Well, I didn’t.” He looks at me and gives me that big, beautiful smile that I’ve never been able to resist, not really. “But I think we should.”

I roll on to my side so I can look at him better. “What- how-”

“Frances just got a promotion,” he says, which is so far from what I was expecting that I nearly burst out laughing.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“She’s getting a huge raise, and she’s going to move out, get her own apartment closer to the office. So, I decided to make use of the bank account information you gave me, and I asked my mom to help me find out what kind of place we might be able to afford for ourselves. I thought you might like this one.”

I shimmy closer to him until our faces are less than an inch apart. “You mean-”

He tips his head forward and bumps his nose to mine. “You've always wanted to get out of Pittsburgh, and you said last week that Ted thinks it’s time for Kinnetik to put people on the ground in a major city, start trying to get contracts with the really big-league clients. I was wondering if- if you might consider being one of those people.”

I smile. “Well, my biggest project is about to go bankrupt, so I do suddenly have a lot of space in my schedule and not much that Pittsburgh can offer to fill it.”

He slides a hand into my hair and kisses me, slow and deep.

A thought occurs to me, and I pull back, just enough to look at him properly. “Is this what you’ve been so busy with the past few days?”

He smiles, a little self-consciously. He’s so beautiful that I have to hold myself back from shoving my tongue down his throat right this second, but we should probably get this done so we can fit in at least a few rounds of sex before Jennifer gets back.

“No one’s ever asked me to move in with them before,” I say.

“Well,” he says, “here’s how it works: You say, ‘Justin Taylor, you are gorgeous, sexy, brilliant, _offensively_ good in bed-’”

“Not selling yourself short, are you?”

“Fuck you,” he says, laughing. “Anyway, after you tell me how wonderful I am, how you’re lost without me, how I bring light into every aspect of your life-

“Jesus Christ.”

“-then you say yes, we buy this gorgeous place, and we live happily ever after.”

I move even closer towards him, so that our noses are touching. “Sounds simple enough.”

Justin smiles again. “Did I mention it’s a duplex? There’s a room that would make an amazing studio space on the upper floor, and a deck with a pool, and mmph-”

I probably lose out on hearing about several more fascinating features of my new home, but the way he kisses me back is more than worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel series: [Straight to Number One](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891456)


End file.
